Please Don't Quote Me By Caralee Aschenbrenner As a responsible citizen of Nature who was at the scene we feel it your duty to identify the perpetrator of holding up the Limestone Bank in Lima Township and announcing Spring too early in April.. You'll be given three illustrations compiled with the assistance of other witnesses. From them you will decide which of them was among the gang of flowers there above the stream now in the process of disorderly conduct. What did you see?

We saw the mob in their white caps, a mass of them against the hill. As we got closer we could count their petals which we later learned were actually sepals. At first they all looked alike, being white, but as we scanned them we saw some had eight petals and some ten. There was more individuality to them than first believed so we had trouble distinguishing them apart. We later learned that they went under several aliases other than Bloodroot (#1). They are AKA Pain Root, Snake Bite, Sweet Slumber, Red Puccoon, White Puccoon and Indian Paint. It depends, we decided, that the names went according to time and place.

To update you on its family, its stem exudes a red, thin blood-like juice though the upper stem's juice is yellowish like the Poppy to which it is related. From that you'll see how it gets its questionable reputation ... Handfuls of them were used to stop bleeding. A tea was brewed to treat fever and rheumatism. Practice was to put a few drops on a lump of maple sugar and let it soak in the mouth to cure coughs, sore throat, colds. The rhizome on a toothache eased the pain. It also induced vomiting as aid to digestion, cured dizziness, paralysis and the spittle from chewing it relieved skin burns or poison ivy irritation. A certain compound, protopine, could relieve arrhythmic heartbeat.

Yes, information in the I.D. brochures says that it, too, was much-used as a decorative process such as for dying baskets the Indians wove and on their arrows. Used as paint, it was mixed with the tannin of the oak bark for permanency and for painting designs on the body to become noticed. Capt. John Smith in early Virginia wrote in his journal in 1612 that the native women chosen by Chief Pawhatan to be his companions painted their bodies with Bloodroot juices. He didn't report what patterns!

The Bloodroot, if you pick it out of the line-up as the suspect for announcing Spring much too early will excuse you from further time here. If not, please take a look at the other illustrations which are from "Field Guide to Wildflowers" by Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny.

We'll call this culprit Rue Anemone #2 but has other identities such as Carolina, Virginia, Tall and Thimbleweed among other aliases, much similar in character. They are a large mob ruled by the Pasque Flower as their godfather. As far as our agency is concerned there is no other name other than the individual specimen except that in the Pennsylvania mountains it is known as the "wild potato" which we guess it might taste like. Some medicinal uses were used of the Anemone among the native Americans and frontiersmen. The root of the Virginia Anemone was used by the Menominee in a poultice for boils. The Meskwakis placed its seed on hot coals to revive the unconscious. Ojibway used Thimbleweed as a tea for lung ailments while the Canada Anemone was made into tea for eye ailments.

The plant plays on its ancient past to protect itself from manipulation. Pliny, the Roman scholar was in its employ, we think, because he advanced its sensitive character by saying the flower could open only at the bidding of the wind. Because of its delicate, tremulous petals (really sepals), shivering as if in pain or sorrow. in the Near East the Anemone is a symbol of illness.

The Greek word for wind is anemos. Which came before the other is not known though the word can be traced all the way back to ancient Sanskrit ... Aniti or "he who breathes." Aniti may be the source word for animal or animation ... To be breathing or alive, as is found in agency files!

Who's to limit the personality of the Anemone when it is hooked up with the gods of pre-history? Its suspected that the passionate tears of Venus shed over the body of slain Adonis were transformed into the frail spring flower, Anemone, a job that only goddesses could do.

The people of the goddess, Flora, put it about that she became enraged because Zephyr, the West Wind, loved the nymph, Anemone, so she turned her into the spring flower we search for. There's been a lot of intrigue and myth-ry(!) concerning Anemone even though they grow all around the world, modestly in the temperate zones, some the size of poppies and in those rich colors, fragile in appearance but there is an underlying plot, supposedly, in their syndicate. It was believed in Britain that unless you held your nose shut when passing a horde of them, their scent wold poison you, an insidious rumor. If you claim this to be true and prove it, you will be eligible for the witness protection program.

The third species, Hepatica #3 perhaps is more identifiable if indeed it is of the mob that surrounded the Bank Agents have gone over their turf time and time again plus have profiled them from every perspective to learn of their habits such as some needing acidic soil, some alkaline and so forth. The gangs control their territory, seldom straying outside their neighborhoods to another patch although they have several disguised to divert you, such as in their colors and numbers. They can be white like the Anemone and Bloodroot hence the identity problem here. And they will grow in clusters or individually. They can take on shades of lavender, blue, shades between, no two alike. To confuse the witness some are sweetly scented while others are not. Some white ones are aromatic, some blue-purples or not. As naturalist, John Burroughs wrote in "Signs and Seasons," (1892), "The gift of the Hepatica's scent is as capricious as the gift of genius in families. You cannot tell which the fragrant ones are till you try them."

Besides the color and scent of the Hepatica, they have several aliases, too Golden Trefoil, Herb Trinity, Ivy Flower, Squirrel Cup, Mouse Ear, Liverleaf or Liverwort not to be confused with other plant by the same.

The last two aliases carry over from the Middle Ages when there was the practice in medicine called the "Doctrine of Signatures." If a plant in some way resembled an organ of the human body, it should be useful in treating disorders of that organ.

Because the leaves of the Hepatica were imagined to look like the liver, the Hepatica was used for many ailments supposed to arise from it. And, too, the "nest" of spent leaves in spring are a dark "liver-red" which enhanced the belief of its efficacy. The word hepatitis is from the Greek hepar or liver, which adds to the relationship of the two.

Native Americans didn't see the liver in Hepatica. They used the plant to cure vertigo, lung conditions, coughs, hemorrhoids and crossed eyes. Tea was made of powdered root to be taken internally by children with convulsions. Later, as it became more known that the plant actually had little value as medicine, the leaves were gathered as a source of tannin to set dyes, etc. If, however, an efficacious "medicine" was needed for liver ailments the shy little Pussy Toes was used. It grows all over North America so was readily available.

A feature which sets Hepatica apart from the Anemone and Bloodroot and could be the suspect in announcing Spring too early and, too, holding up the Limestone Bank, is that they have hairy stems unlike the others. Did any of those shady specimen have a beard?

Investigation will continue in this case but we believe the Bloodroot is the prime suspect because its leaf wraps around the stem of the flower, as you can see in the drawings. Numbers of petals (sepals) are too different to I.D. it that way.

If we can't nail the Bloodroot to this incident, we can get it for disorderly conduct for creeping over the hill. Notice to appear is now thought to be fruitless because it's into May, past its peak of blooming unless somewhere it can be found in some criminal trespass in a clandestine glen or other creekside.

Thank you for your input in this investigation.

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